Mayan texts reveal superpower wars

Translations of hieroglyphs on the staircase of a pyramid in Guatemala reveal details of a superpower struggle between two city-states at the peak of the Mayan civilisation.

The 1300-year old hieroglyphs support theories that the Mayan world was riven by battles between two major powers, rather than smaller-scale clashes between multiple rival dynasties.

"It's rare that you find a new monument and it fills in such a large blank spot about the history of a region," says Arthur Demarest, an anthropologist at Vanderbilt University, Tennessee, who has led research at Dos Pilas in northern Guatemala, where the staircase was found.

"In today's terms, Dos Pilas was the Somalia or Vietnam of the Maya world, used in a war that was actually between two superpowers," he told the magazine of the National Geographic Society, which part-funded the new research.

The staircase was revealed in October 2001, when Hurricane Iris uprooted a tree at the base of temple ruins at Dos Pilas. Demarest's colleague Federico Fahsen has just completed translations of the text.

Pools of blood

The staircase describes 60 eventful years in the life of Balaj Chan K'awiil, who in 635AD became ruler of Dos Pilas, aged four. At that time, the text recounts, K'awiil's older brother was one of two powerful kings at war with one another.

His brother, the king of Tikal in northern Guatemala, was battling the ruler of Calakmul, 97 kilometres further north in what is now Mexico. Dos Pilas is 113 kilometres northeast of Tikal.

While K'awiil was in his twenties, Calakmul forces invaded and conquered Dos Pilas. K'awiil switched his allegiance to Calakmul and waged war against his brother for a decade, until Tikal was sacked. His brother and other members of the nobility were taken to Dos Pilas to be executed.

The west section of the steps describes the killings, says Fahsen: "It says: 'Blood was pooled and the skulls of the people of the central place of Tikal were piled up.' The final glyphs describe the king of Dos Pilas 'doing a victory dance'."

Demarest thinks the Mayan civilisation was probably on the verge of forming a single empire about the time of the battles described on the staircase. But instead, the war between the two powers continued. "And then the Maya world broke up into regional powers, setting the stage for a period of intensive, petty warfare that finally led to the collapse of the Maya," he says.

However, the causes of the collapse of the civilisation by 900AD remain the subject of hot debate. David Stuart of Harvard University thinks it is still possible that a cataclysmic environmental event triggered its final demise.

If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.